Growing in ALX: Featuring Birth Club
By: Adrianne Griffith
From retail and restaurants to tech and media, contractors to coworking spaces, large, small, and everything in between, a diverse array of businesses call Alexandria home. In our blog series, Growing in Alexandria, we sit down to talk with businesses around the City to learn more about who they are, what they do, and why they love it here. Have an idea for a business in Alexandria to talk to? Email us!
Many families and parents-to-be choose to call Alexandria home- and it’s businesses like Birth Club that are a big part of that. This week, we talked with Liz Bolton and Linsay Hiller, Co-Founders of Birth Club, to learn more about this new business in Old Town Alexandria that focuses on moms and moms-to-be.
AEDP: To start us off, please tell us a little about Birth Club.
L&L: Birth Club is community space in Old Town Alexandria designed just for moms and moms-to-be. We offer prenatal yoga, post-pregnancy yoga, and workshops on topics from fertility, childbirth education, and breastfeeding to returning to work, relationships after baby, and pelvic floor health. Our society does such a poor job supporting new moms and their families, especially in such a transient area, where women might not have extended family nearby. We want to help women find the answers and communities they need to navigate—mentally and physically—this enormous, life-changing transformation into motherhood.
AEDP: Your business is pretty new- what’s the most rewarding aspect so far?
L&L: We’ve both experienced how challenging it is to become a mother, so by far the most rewarding experience is knowing that we are helping other women during this time. We have been overwhelmed with the positive feedback from our mamas. The emails, texts, messages, and hugs we’ve received all tell us that what we’re doing is working. Women are finding the support and community they need in our classes and events. To quote one of our wonderful mamas who recently had her baby: “I’m feeling a HUGE difference in my mental and emotional well-being already. And…I notice subtle strength coming back. And it’s all because of YOU and the Birth Club community.” It’s feedback like this that keeps us going. Plus, we get to hang out with babies all the time!
AEDP: What’s the next big thing on the horizon?
L&L: We’re working right now on growth, filling out our schedule with more classes and different offerings— more-advanced yoga as our clients progress along with functional strength workouts, and family yoga—and we’re building out our education program with unique classes we believe should be on every mother’s syllabus. We have workshops coming up on postpartum planning, toddler sleep, going back to work after maternity leave, and how to keep your relationship strong after having a baby.
AEDP: Do you have a favorite charity that you like to support?
L&L: We are huge believers in Postpartum Support Virginia, which connects mothers who are struggling with mental health resources, and Mom Congress, which advocates for system-wide changes to how our institutions and businesses support new parents. We help individuals on a one-on-one basis, but it’s so important to us to help effect change on a bigger level. Charities like Mom Congress and Every Mother Counts are making sure that every family gets the help they need. Liz is also on the boards of the amazing Alexandria-based charities RunningBrooke and YoKid. Both focus on bringing movement to children to help them succeed in and outside the classroom, a cause that’s near and dear to her heart (because movement is so important to her own mental health and ability to keep up her energy as both a mom and a business owner).
[Note: RunningBrooke was previously featured on this blog. The post can be found here.]
AEDP: How do you measure success at Birth Club?
L&L: It might be obvious, but we measure success by the number of women who seek us out and decide to stay, helping to build the Birth Club community. The mothers who become members of our yoga program, who regularly show up for our free baby-feeding social circles, who share their ever-growing knowledge and confidence as their babies grow. While watching their babies reach milestones is always exciting, it’s truly amazing to see the growth of the women, who face big and little challenges every day, overcome them, and then share that wisdom. We are so grateful to be a community gathering space where that kind of magic happens.
AEDP: Last but not the least: why Alexandria?
L&L: The business community in Alexandria is amazing–there are so many resources and so much support available to entrepreneurs. Other business owners (who are often moms!) are so eager to support and collaborate with us. We are both raising our families in Alexandria (Liz can walk to the studio), and we’re centrally located for women from D.C., Arlington, and Fairfax County.
To learn more about Birth Club, stop by 107 N. Fairfax St. or visit their website.
